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Longmont host to regional flood recovery program

By Tony Kindelspire

Times-Call staff writer

Posted:
08/18/2014 09:28:48 PM MDT

Updated:
08/18/2014 09:30:05 PM MDT

Federal dollars — whether they be used to reimburse homeowners who had major out-of-pocket expenses recovering from last September's floods or for building a new retaining wall on a critical stretch of the Big Thompson River — was the theme Monday night at a town hall-style meeting in Longmont featuring the state of Colorado's flood recovery team.

For more information or to submit comments:

To review Colorado's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery draft "action plan," visit dola.colorado.gov/cdbg-dr.That's also where people can submit comments, or they can email their comments to dola_recovery@state.co.us until Aug. 30. The state will forward a final draft action plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in September.

Molly Urbina, the state's chief recovery officer, walked the audience through a draft "action plan" that will be finalized before being sent off to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development, which has announced a new round of flood recovery money totaling $199.3 million it wants to give to the state.

The money is designed to aid in recovery from any federally declared disaster in Colorado 2011 and 2013. That will include not just last September's floods but also the Black Canyon and Hyde Park fires.

But because the money is coming through the federal government's Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds program, 80 percent of the funds must go to the three counties hurt most by September's flooding, and 50 percent must go to benefit low- and moderate income people.

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"Reallocation of funds from the top down, and increased funding, is very important," said Deward Walker, one of about a dozen speakers state officials listened to.

Walker owns a tree farm in Four Mile Canyon that suffered a lot of damage in the flood, at least part of that damage due to scarred hillsides from a previous fire that didn't hold the water in September's heavy rains.

One woman spoke of refurbishing three 120-year-old cabins and turning them into resort cabins on property she owns at the base of Big Thompson Canyon. Even though the cabins were well out of the flood plain, the water during the flood scoured away the land, leaving two of the cabins to fall into the river and the third sitting just eight-feet from the sheer dropoff to the river that the flood left behind.

"The only way I can recover is to rebuild, so I'm going to do it," said Joetta Toland, who said that to do that she needs financial assistance, and doesn't know where to turn.

If nothing else, she implored state officials, please secure funding for a retaining wall along the river so it would protect her property and the property of the landowners downstream from her, who were also severely impacted.

This was the fifth town hall meeting held by state officials, and Urbina said they will take public comment until the end of August and then her team has a self-imposed deadline of Sept. 5 for submitting the final plan to HUD.

The newest round of funding is the second of three rounds of federal dollars, the state will be receiving, totaling $320 million. It is already distributing $62.8 million and another $58.2 million will be coming at some time in the future.

One unidentified speaker whose basement suffered severe flooding in her Martin Acres home in Boulder said she was unhappy with some aspects of the draft plan that dealt with things such as transportation and work force training, calling the programs extraneous when so many people are still, almost a year later, suffering the after-effects of the flood.

"How about we fix what's broken first and improve later?" the woman said.

At the end of the meeting Urbina reminded the audience that public comment on the plan is being accepted online until August 31.

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